U.S. Houses, Sabre Donate $11.5M in Books Overseas
Diane Patrick -- Publishers Weekly, 2/22/1999
Generous donations from commercial, independent and university publishers enabled the nonprofit Sabre Foundation to distribute more than 360,000 books, valued at an estimated $11.5 million, to more than 15 countries last year.The top donating commercial publishers included Wiley, World Book and six divisions of McGraw-Hill. Nonprofit publishers -- whose efforts helped restock the National and University Library in Bosnia-Herzegovina -- included the University of Chicago Press, Johns Hopkins University Press and Oxford University Press.
Since its inception in 1986, Sabre's book program -- which provides college-, secondary- and elementary-level educational materials to institutions and individuals in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and selected countries in other regions of the world -- has distributed nearly $90 million worth of educational books and materials to more than 50 countries.
Sabre director Tania Vitvitsky said that although they are looking for more books in French and Arabic, most of the books that go overseas are in English, which is 'the international language of business and the primary language of the Internet.'
For more information, contact the Sabre Foundation at (617) 868-3510 or visit its Web site at www.sabre.org.
